Archive for the 'Investing' Category
Posted by Bloggeries in Finance - Credit and Loans, Investing
We all love to laugh at our finances once in a while (don’t we?) and this next blog is a good outlet for that. This blog is called Money Moose. Money Moose likes to be known as the money blog for real professionals, and is self-professed to be the number one non-financially skilled financial advisor in the world. As the blogger himself will tell you, many have referred to Money Moose as a parody site, but the blogger says that was is required to be a parody site (funny, jokes, and many page views) can not be found at Money Moose. Money Moose takes itself seriously, and ranks itself with The Wall Street Journal and CNN Money despite the fact that Money Moose is bringing in 600 page views a day. However, along with some humor you will be sure to find quality content in money, business, and finance, as well as some good investing guides at Money Moose. Go and see this for yourself by reading any of their most recent bloggeries: The 101 Dumbest Business Moments, Frugal Living EXTREME! 16: Financial Advisors, About that Tuna You’re Eating, The Customer Is (n’t) Always Right, Frugal Living EXTREME! 14: Shampoo, November News of the Moose, and Guerilla Job Recruitment Techniques.
The blog is very neatly organized, and this makes it very easy to navigate. Bloggeries are centralized in black text on white background and links and menu borders are in a light blue. The blog has both a left and right navigation system, as well as a top navigation bar. In the top navigation bar you will find links to Home, About the Moose, Advertising on MoneyMoose, and Contact forms and information. In the left navigation menu you will find a Pages Menu offering again these same links from the Top Menu, Categories Menu, Recent Posts Menu, and an ad for Entrecard Business Card. The categories menu is not large, but comprehensive for the topic and contains sections such as Financial News, Frugal Living EXTREME, Irresponsible Investing, Miscellaneous, and Money Quick Tips. In the right navigation menu you will find subscription options, Sponsor the Moose link, Valued Associates Menu (aka blogroll), Recent Comments Menu, and an Archives menu indicating the blog is just hitting the three month old mark.
Overall I am going to give this blog a 4, which is an excellent score considering it is so young. But the blog is very well done, professionally laid out in a clean easy template that makes it easy to read. The blog is organized nicely within this template that makes finding all of the blog meat very easy, and thus, easy to navigate. Content scores well as it is fresh and unique content written well and very clever humor. The activity is the only thing I would suggest improving at this point. The first two months of blogging looked fairly consistent, but the blogger has only brought in 8 posts in December. I would suggest the blogger bring in a little more consistency to not only keep the readership active, but also to bring in more traffic. Overall however the blog is doing well with an excellently established readership which can only improve as the blog grows.
-Chrissie
Posted by Bloggeries in Investing
If you like money, like to talk about money, like to make money, or like to read about money, in an investing and big finance kind of way, then you may want to have a look at the Sharpe Investing Blog. The blog is only a few months old but is doing very well as a means of providing comprehensive information about a variety of finance and investing information. The owner of the blog is Matt, and he is a finance major attending a well-respected business school in the United States. His career objective is to pursue investment banking or asset management. Besides education, his experience lends credibility to the blog topic, as Matt has been investing himself since he was 13 when he started out with a small value mutual fund and he made 60% in the first year. That same year he began pursuing the stock market through a contest at school and as he says ‘performed very well’. He finds that writing and researching this topic has helped him grow immensely in the field, and he wants to enhance this learning process by growing a readership through which, everyone can grow together. You can get a feel for his extensive knowledge in the subject through any of his recent bloggeries: When to Issue Debt Versus Equity, WallStreetOasis.com, Liar’s Poker, LIBOR – London Interbank Offered Rate; In Investing, You Get What you Pay For – Speech by John Bogle, 130/30 Fund Strategies; Merger or Risk Arbitrage Overview; George Soros Theory of Reflexivity MIT Speech; and Theory of Reflexivity.
Navigation on this blog is very easy, as the blog has a clean layout and extremely organized design template. Bloggeries are in black text on white background with blue bordering and blue highlights throughout the blog. The links are in blue highlights and this overall design makes the blog easy on the eyes, and thus, a very easy read. Bloggeries are left marginalized with two navigation bars in the right hand side. In the left navigation bar you will find a Categories menu, advertising, Archives Menu, and a Blog Roll. In the right navigation bar you will find advertising, subscription information, Recent Posts Menu, Recent Comments Menu, and a Top Commenters Menu. You will also find a very handy Top navigation bar where you can access the Home link, About Page, Archives, Contact Us information, Sitemap, and Subscription information. Themes you will find in the categories menu are of course finance related, and range from Alternative Investments, Economics, Personal Finance, Retirement, and many more finance related topics.
I am going to give this blog a 3.7/5 as it does very well on almost all blog criteria. The appearance is excellently managed and makes for a very easy read. Navigation scores are well as well, as this blog has a clean layout and well-organized navigation system. The blogger has also incorporated his advertising enough to monetize the blog without the ads distracting from the blog content. The only area the blog needs some strength is in the frequency of activity. Currently the bloggeries are only coming in every couple of weeks and sometimes even longer in between. Overall however, this blogger clearly understands his content and conveys that in an easy to read yet intelligent manner, and thus with more frequent activity could very easily sustain a nice healthy readership. If you are looking for some sound credible advice on investing or finance, this blog is definitely well worth the read.
-Chrissie
Posted by Bloggeries in Reviews, Finance - Credit and Loans, Investing
If money is of any interest to you, and who isn’t interested in money, then perhaps you want to stop in to Silver Monthly: Resource for Silver Investing. If you have a look at it, you will see just how right they probably are, it is a very comprehensive resource when it comes to the metal exchange system. This blog has sought information from several resources that will help you determine where silver fits into your modern portfolio. Any of their recent posts will give you an excellent idea as to how comprehensive this blog really is: A history of money and banking in the United States: Book Review; Silver Bearish Investor Vs. Silver Bullish Investors; Eight Rules for Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) Success; MAG Silver Corp. to List on the American Stock Exchange; Chicago Futures Markets Post Record Volume in June; Gold, Silver Futures Advance as Dollar Weakens Against the Euro, Silver Price to Remain High on Investor Interest, U.S. Gold Corp Should Gain on Shaky Dollar, and Silver Stocks Outperform Gold Stocks.
The navigation is very simple on this site, with posts being left marginalized and two right navigation bars. Appearance also is very simple and readable, with black text on blue columned backgrounds against a primary white background. The left-sided right navigation bar contains a links menu, stock quotes, metal prices and a search bar as well as the categories of “All”, “Silver Investing Articles”, “Silver News”, and “Books Reviewed”. You will also find a link to the Silver Forum if you are interested, as well as a menu for the Most Popular Posts which will give you information on how to survive mutual funds, and which companies and countries are the major producers of silver. On the right-sided navigation bar you will also find a comments menu and the recent posts links.
I am going with a 4 for this one. The only suggestions I would have would be to add some pictures to give a little oomph to the blog – even simple pictures of money or gold or silver. Also I really like to see an About page on blogs, even on ones as professional as this one. It gives the blog a voice and even a little bit as to how the blog came into fruition would be very interesting to the readers I think. On other accounts however, the blog scores excellently for superbly written content, very professional appearance, and efficient usability with the navigation system in place. I also thought the advertising was so well formatted, that it could probably even use a little more if it wants to without running the risk of distraction. Judging by the quality of the recent comments in the very organized comments menu, I think this blog has a good following. Given the way the market fluxes today however, it could probably pick up a few readers along the way with some of these suggestions. Overall, the blog is doing well though and is a very professional and easy read.
- Chrissie
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